How to access boot menu on 2012 Mac mini

[mrochester]

Hello.

I can’t access the boot menu on my 2012 MacMini.

I have tried both a fully wired keyboard (hammering the Windows key as soon as the startup sound sounds) and my Logitech MX Keys connected via the USB dongle.

The Mac doesn’t seem to detect either keyboard quick enough to recognise that I am pressing a key to bring up the boot menu.

Does anyone have any idea how to get the boot menu in this instance?

Many thanks.

M.

 

[arw]

hammering the Windows key

And there's the problem.
You have to use the "alt" key.

 

[mrochester]

And there's the problem.
You have to use the "alt" key.

It doesn't matter which is pressed I cannot access the boot menu.

 

[Kevin Lasko]

How do you get to the boot menu on a Mac?


Press the Power button to turn on your Mac (or Restart your Mac if it's already on). When you hear the startup chime, press and hold the Option key. Holding that key gives you access to OS X's Startup Manager. Once the Startup Manager screen appears, release the Option key.

 

[for this]

On wired keyboards, I don't have to wait for the right time to press the key. I can just press it even before clicking the Restart button and keep pressing it until the Boot Manager comes up.

But your keyboard may be the problem. I did a search and found confusing info about its wired mode (charge-only vs full USB wired mode). At least a Mac user can't use it as a wired keyboard.
https://www.reddit.com/r/keyboards/comments/ewprqw
And when you are using a non-Apple keyboard. If there are two alt keys, there is a chance that only one of them will work as a startup key.

Even on my AEKII keyboard (connected via iMate ADB to USB adapter), only the left option key works as a startup key, the right one doesn't.

 

[mrochester]

How do you get to the boot menu on a Mac?


Press the Power button to turn on your Mac (or Restart your Mac if it's already on). When you hear the startup chime, press and hold the Option key. Holding that key gives you access to OS X's Startup Manager. Once the Startup Manager screen appears, release the Option key.

That doesn’t work. It just boots into macOS. That’s with trying both a wired and wireless keyboard.

 

[for this]

If all else fails, an alternative is using command line "sudo nvram manufacturing-enter-picker=true" enter admin password and restart. This will make your Mac boot to Boot Manager every time. To reset that, reset NVRAM by typing "sudo nvram -c", enter admin password and restart.

 

[mrochester]

If all else fails, an alternative is using command line "sudo nvram manufacturing-enter-picker=true" enter admin password and restart. This will make your Mac boot to Boot Manager every time. To reset that, reset NVRAM by typing "sudo nvram -c", enter admin password and restart.

Thanks, I suspect that’ll be my only option since the Mac does not recognise the keyboard prior to booting into MacOS.

 

[mrochester]

If all else fails, an alternative is using command line "sudo nvram manufacturing-enter-picker=true" enter admin password and restart. This will make your Mac boot to Boot Manager every time. To reset that, reset NVRAM by typing "sudo nvram -c", enter admin password and restart.

That doesn’t work. I enter the command and password as mentioned but I get no boot menu. It just boots straight into MacOS.

 

[mrochester]

I’ve fixed it! The only way to get the boot menu to show is to connect the monitor via HDMI rather than displayport.

 

[xjordanx]

I am having the exact problem. However, I believe this is a specific change in Catalina. The macs I bought (2 of them) reliably showed boot menu with my Windows keyboard and ALT key, including USB devices for installing other OSes. After "upgrading" the main drive to Catalina (from El Capitan) this capability disappeared.

I've tried EVERY keyboard combination and cannot get into the boot menu. I CAN get into recovery mode by holding down WINDOWS+R (Command R) for a VERY LONG TIME.

There was ONE time I could access the boot menu, when I got lucky. Once only, and it was after physically installing a new SSD, with the old disk on a USB-to-SATA cable, and it allowed me to migrate my settings. After that, I've wasted frustrating HOURS AND HOURS without being able to access the boot menu.

Tried using "bless" but it refuses to help. Similarly, cannot use USB thumb drive with "Boot Disk" options in system preferences. (Says "Bless failed..." with some error message about it not being able).

I really do believe, Apple have put something in Catalina to POISON the older hardware. So much for being environmentally responsible!

All I wanted to do was run MacOS and Linux on a couple low cost machines for my lab...

I'll try the nvram command above and report back. That's one I haven't tried yet.

Any other help or advice or commiseration (ie. confirming this is specifically a Catalina issue)... I'm all ears.